


The Cardinal Rule for Falling in Love

by HazelFlynn



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 14:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12866571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelFlynn/pseuds/HazelFlynn
Summary: The cardinal rule for falling in love with a coworker is you don’t.





	The Cardinal Rule for Falling in Love

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors, or just general lack of coherency - 90% of this was written on my phone at 4 AM during the graveyard shift at my nursing home. This is essentially a 4700-word-long word-dump of all the thoughts rattling in my brain. Originally didn't wanna post it, but I'm really getting into this ship and the lack of anything on the internet is killing me. 
> 
> Inspired partly by BBJ_3's story.

The cardinal rule for falling in love with a coworker is don’t. 

Especially if said coworker also happens to be your subordinate. But even with a seemingly more equal balance of power, things are never as simple as you’d want them to be. He learned that the hard way when he broke that cardinal rule – twice. 

Granted, the first time, they weren’t technically coworkers – it wouldn’t be another 4 months into dating that she decided to jump ship and dedicate herself to the hospital that her grandfather helped build. When asked why she hadn’t been committed from the start, given her family history, the statuesque blond shrugged and gave vague answers about self-discovery and needing time. She feigned disinterest, but he could tell the topic was iffy – don’t push it, was the answer that went unsaid. 

A lot of things went unsaid between them, especially recently. More and more, it felt as though both of them were looking at the other through a glass wall – still able to see and hear, but never getting the full picture. It began with the little things – arguments about nothing that amounted to less than nothing. Empty threats and insults spat out until they were both out of breath and out of words. They would reach an impasse – a false sense of peace like sticking a Band-Aid over a bullet wound. 

And then things would actually be alright for a while – not because they had achieved any meaningful change in their relationship, but because they were too tired to keep talking. Those moments of peace and quiet is what he eventually figured had lead him to believe he could make it work. Because from the outside, they were a picture-perfect couple – both were smart and beautiful, highly accomplished in their respective fields. In theory, they were meant to be together. 

Problem is, just because it seems functional in theory, doesn’t always mean it’s going to work. And anyone who had ever read a book about science will tell you that usually the next step after failing to translate theory into practise is to throw out the theory and start over.  
Easier said than done when it comes to romance. 

The verbal fist fights would graduate from tedious and meaningless to dangerous and potentially damaging when she finally got settled in her new position. Their battle ground had shifted from the safety bubble of their apartments to the open field of the hospital grounds. And their targets had evolved from dinner plans to hospital procedure, with the lives of his patients often hanging precariously in the balance. 

There was no impasse when it came to human lives, in Neil’s mind - somebody had to give. Somebody had to be right and take responsibility for the choices that are made. When she won, she was smug; when she lost, she was surly. And she never, ever gave up an argument without a fight - even when she knew she was going to lose. Often, to Neil and many others he suspected, there seemed to be no logic to her intransigence – everything was a play for power. There was no second thought about the consequences to her choices – just that people had to listen because of her position. 

Their fighting would carry over from the patient room, to the boardroom, to their apartment, where they would often eat dinner and sit in sullen silence after a long, difficult day at work. Eventually one of them would break the tension with a half-assed apology that wasn’t really an apology – just another useless Band-Aid. These petty arguments chipped away at a foundation already built on shaky ground with cheap material – did he really expect to put up a house and not have it crumble with the first wind? 

Well, maybe if that wind hadn’t come in the form an autistic savant who just happened to be a surgical resident. One of the most brilliant surgical residents Neil had ever taught, in fact. Brilliant...but complicated. Not that he was any less complicated, but Shaun was different. He wasn’t a mess that could be untangled and cleaned up overnight – his complications required the patience and precision that even Neil, as a well-season attending surgeon, did not come close to possessing. And yet he felt tempted by the challenge. 

Every ounce of logic and reasoning screamed at him that he should hate this - that a young man with autism, no matter his high intelligence, did not belong in his operating room. So long as he was the attending, the OR was his domain and he would decide who should or shouldn’t be there. And Shaun most definitely did not belong. Or so he tells himself. And so he challenged him – poked and prodded, almost mocking in his relentlessness to prove he didn’t belong. But he never seemed to let it get to him. 

Everything, Shaun believed, was done for a reason. Every task (no matter how menial) and every order (no matter how tedious) had a purpose in teaching him, something. Somehow. Because that’s how his mind worked, it seemed – every statement made was taken as a fact; every fact assumed as truth, so long as it was logical. He also made no attempt to disguise his feelings and asked questions plainly, simply.

“Why are you marrying Jessica?”

It wasn’t asked with judgement – no tinge of jealousy or hint of flirtation. It was a simple enough question. Why does anyone get married, he replied. He loved Jessica. The young doctor countered with a shrug, stating bluntly that he didn’t understand why having someone to love was so important to everyone. Again, no judgement, no envy. It seemed like nothing was every left unsaid with Shaun. He navigated the world with all his cards sewn on his chest. 

The honesty was both refreshing and irritating at the same time. Because sometimes, one need to obfuscate. Sometimes, things were better left unsaid – it was just easier that way. It didn’t occur to him until later that perhaps the reason the concept of love baffled him was because he had lost the things that he truly loved in his life, and never fully experienced it again on any level, even from the people he should’ve meant the most to. He made the mistake of mentioning this to her. The idea slipped from his brain and out his lips without much thought, a statement uttered in passing. 

Her brows furrowed in confusion – why was he suddenly so interested in the kid? Didn’t he hate him? 

Hate wasn’t the right term – hate implied that he cared enough to actively think about him, positively or negatively. He didn’t hate Shaun. His presence worried him – made him worry about his patient’s safety and the reputation of him and his staff. Even after he proved him wrong, time and time again, Neil had a nagging feeling in the back of his head that he couldn’t shake. He didn’t hate the kid; he...well, to be honestly, he didn’t know how to describe his feelings. So he lashed out at Shaun. 

Out of his angry and his confusion, someone had the brunt of it. He knew he would regret picking Shaun. Everybody has a breaking point – the young surgeon wasn’t immune to that fact. After weeks on end of questioning his judgement, throwing hours of scutwork in his face, warming up when his ideas succeeded only to turn cold again the next day – after weeks of oscillating back and forth... 

“You don’t respect me.” 

It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. And it wasn’t a realization in the moment – he stated it as a fact that he had known for a long time. An unpleasantness that he resigned himself to enduring. A fact he left unsaid. The frustration was evident on his face, the way he twitched and fidgeted and refused to make eye contact. Stimming, as he said, from the stress of everything finally seeming to boil over. Neil was the attending; he gave the final order. The patient was transferred out. Shaun was not happy. 

Once alone he directed the two of them to an empty room. He attempted to place a hand on his arm – keep him still just for a second so they could talk – only to have Shaun shrink away from him, his elbows bent, and arms raised slightly. He thought he was being rebuffed and was ready to start arguing – only to remember to at the last second that Shaun doesn’t like to be touched. He was already out of ideas. 

Patients he could handle, but coworkers were a different beast. He didn’t know how to calm, how to reassure, or how to comfort someone that wasn’t potentially dying – all he knew how to do with coworkers was argue until he was too tired to keep talking. And so he stood in silence as Shaun paced back and forth across the room. Eventually, Neil left – there was nothing to be done. 

A couple hours later, a miracle happened. 

The patient was awake and doing well – he made the right call. That wasn’t the miracle – it was what happened following that. Shaun came in, hands folded across the abdomen, his thumbs twiddling. He seemed much calmer, though his hair was still plastered across his forehead with sweat from his early outburst and subsequent reactions, Neil guessed.

I was wrong, he stated; he had made the right decision. 

There was no malice to his words. Behind those big, blue eyes was nothing but sincerity – a genuine apology. He’d almost forgotten what that sounded like. And in that moment, something inside Neil has shifted, like the earth had tilted up on its axis. At his silence, Shaun had walked away, thumbs still twirling. But in his place, something had been pushed out and was misaligned. Or was it realigned? Like a bad back one grew accustomed to having, and snapping it back into place felt like you were breaking it all over again. 

Jessica picked up on it too. As they descended the main staircase heading out the door, she sensed his unease and proceeded to address it the only way she knew how – by provoking an argument that she already knew would lead nowhere. 

“What is the matter with you lately?”

There it was; the million-dollar question. As he looked into her eyes, he could pinpoint a lot of emotions – anger, sadness, confusion – but all he knew how to do was snap back. Why was he being weird? Did she forget where they worked, what his job was, day-in and day-out? Did she forget how much pressure was on his shoulders every time he walked through those heavy doors? 

He wasn’t being entirely honest, and she knew it. But as it stood, she had no way of countering his argument without seeming insensitive. And so she turned away from him sharply, the only sound being her stilettos clicking as she continued her descent down the marble staircase, stewing in silence. When she lost, she got surly. He followed behind her, just as silent in his defeat.

The more he wanted to keep peace between them and make this work, the less he realized he could confide in her; the glass wall growing thicker and thicker. So he buried himself in his work, choosing instead to keep his mind occupied with the comings and goings of the hospital and his patients. She still stopped by, bringing dinner if he’s working late or coffee after a night on-call, playing the part of the dutiful fiancée. When asked about their wedding, she would smile and gush about intricate details that Neil had never heard her mentioning before, let alone agreed to. It was better than telling the truth, which was that after being engaged for 6 months, they haven’t had a single conversation about what their wedding was going to look like.

She wanted a wedding at the beach with a few close friends and family for the ceremony – simple, romantic, no fuss. He wanted to get married at a church – or rather, his parents did – and was expected to invite their extended families and friends. His alone would take up half of any cathedral, if all his cousins managed to fly in. Large, elaborate, complicated – the opposite of her vision. 

We should talk about this later, she concluded one morning when the topic came up. He just pulled an all-nighter in the ER and was in no mood to argue about this in front of a team of nurses. Shaun came barreling in, shouting at people to please move – the only problem was the words came after the action, resulting Jessica and several others being jostle in his haste. He didn’t seem to really notice, so laser-focused as he was. Before Neil could ask what the hell he was doing, a question about wanting love seemed to startle him and he moved on with his mission, whatever it was. 

After the day he declared that Neil didn’t respect him, and then apologizing mere hours later about something unrelated to that fact, the feeling of something in his life being misaligned never fully went away. At first, he wanted to correct him – tell Shaun that he did, in fact, respect him; that he earned that respect through his intelligence and dedication and perseverance. But he never got around to it. It didn’t seem like the right thing to say, oddly enough. What he felt went beyond respect – it went beyond admiration and feeling proud of him. 

It was a feeling he would never accept enough to say out loud. 

The night he realized this, he had had a good day. It was his day off, so he relaxed at home; when she came back, she too was relaxed, happy. They cooked dinner together and chatted about nothing – little tidbits of random information exchanged over a simple meal. And when he held her at night, feeling the weight of her body collapsed against him as she drifted off to sleep...his mind just couldn’t help but wander. He thought about the hospital, about his patients, about his schedule for the upcoming days. He thought about his residents – Jared and Claire were both really coming into their own, well on their way to becoming amazing doctors one day. And then he thought about Shaun. 

He too had come a long way since the first day they met. As a doctor anyway – he had no idea what kind of progress Shaun had made outside the confines of the hospital. Not that he needed to know – he didn’t actively make a habit of learning about his coworker’s personal lives. But he was curious – had the young surgeon made any friends outside the hospital? Was he in a relationship with somebody – did he want to be in a relationship? 

He couldn’t imagine how that would work, given his dislike of the basics of romance. He didn’t like holding hands or being hugged – people squeezed too hard, he reasoned. He almost kissed a girl once; and according to Claire, he was no exception to the fact that all men watch porn. As Jessica gently rolled off him, still deep in sleep, he wondered how long it would take for Shaun to be this comfortable sleeping with another person. To be fully, completely relaxed sharing a bed with another human body; to have that person roll over and wrap an arm around his torso, planting feathery kisses to his cheek, his neck, his shoulder. To feel him smile and arch his back approvingly, grasping his lover’s hand and interlacing their fingers. Maybe he’d turn his head back, allowing his partner to stare lovingly into those baby blue eyes and realize how lucky they were.

He couldn’t imagine that Shaun would be any less dedicated to a relationship than he was with his work, given the right circumstances. Even if he didn’t always express his adoration in a conventionally manner, the right person would be able to look past his early blunders, appreciate the gestures, and just be happy, knowing how much he was pushing his boundaries to be with them. 

The right person would gladly take him by the hand, feeling him squirm uncomfortably at first but eventually settling down, and navigate the world with him, together, as a team. They wouldn’t infantilize him, treat him as a child that needs to be watched and cared for, but as an adult that required just a little more patience and understanding, which they would supply with love. They would never do anything to hurt him, but they would try and safely push him out of his comfort zone, within reason. Never going so far that they couldn’t pull him back. 

The right person understood his brilliance but also recognized his humanity – challenging him when he needed to be challenged, but supporting him when he’s done well, and just…being there if he needed them to be. They would relish in watching him smile when things worked out like he planned; celebrate with him in his pure, unfiltered happiness. 

These thoughts ran through his head at the speed of light. Before he even knew what was happening, he found himself picturing these scenarios in his mind’s eye, picturing him smiling and laughing. Before he knew it, he too was smiling at the thought, as he inserted himself, somehow, into the scene.

The sound of a rough, dry cough reeled him back to reality. 

Jessica sat up, muttering something about water and a humidifier. He nodded absently, pretending to be mostly asleep, and roll over to face away from her as she got up and headed downstairs. He held his breath until she was far enough that he could no longer hear the soft pattering of her barefoot on the carpet. When he felt safe, his mind drifted back to Shaun. His thoughts meandered back toward his smile, the way his eyes lit up, the way his voice had an almost sing-song quality to them when he spoke about his ideas, the words tumbling out as eloquently as any other doctor Neil had ever heard. 

At least from a medical perspective, there was seemingly no disadvantage. And that was the point wasn’t it? As long as he demonstrated that he was just as smart and brilliant as any other resident, as long as he got his job done, that’s all anyone cared about. The moment Shaun walked out the front doors, there were no more expectations. 

Sometimes he would seem him if they left around the same time, the young resident sitting on the bench, with his backpack in his lap, patiently waiting for his bus to take him home. No words were ever exchanged – they said their goodbyes in the hospital. But even then, he would pause for a second; the thought of offering a ride home or asking if everything was okay snaked into his brain. The hand that would inevitably reach around to hold his, lacing their fingers together as they continued to walk, reminded him that the snake needed to be quashed as swiftly as it entered. But even then, it always came back around. 

It was like an insidious plague, slowly infecting his life. It affected his relationships, his judgement, his temper – and he wasn’t blind to the changes. He saw the indignation on Claire’s face as she jumped to defend Shaun; heard it in her voice when she told him he was being unreasonable. He had no words to counter her accusations, so he shut down the conversation instead. Jessica, too, was beginning to suspect something was off with him; that it wasn’t just stress from his work or from having to mentor and monitor. And her obsessive personality clicked in as she dug in her heels on the idea that there was something he wasn’t telling her – something that desperately needed to be said, but he refused to answer. How could he? 

How would he tell the woman he thought he loved that he spent most nights thinking of another man’s face?

Throughout all of it, Shaun remained passive – neither confronting nor avoiding him. One day, out of the corner of his eye he noticed a piece of paper, folded up, and a pen in his hands. He continued his conversation with Claire and thought nothing of it – until he noticed Shaun writing. Was he taking notes? Notes on what? What to do when a lab specimen goes missing? Granted, they didn’t teach you about that in medical school, but it was hardly noteworthy. Somehow, he worked it out just before he re-entered the room.

“You were flirting with Dr. Melendez.” No judgement, no jealousy, no malice. Just a fact.

She denied the accusations, of course, and Neil spared her the rest of her flustering by breaking up the chatter with his presence. He was taking notes on the flirting, and presumably, the logistics of romance in general. 

After that, he noticed Shaun being more attentive to Jessica. When she entered the room, not as a lawyer but as his fiancée, his attention would be temporarily halted and redirected to her presence. He watched the way she touched Neil’s arm, the way their hands wrapped together, the quick, chaste kisses they exchanged, sweet but fleeting. The piece of paper evolved into a pocketbook, which he often kept tucked in the pocket of his scrub pants. If his clothes didn’t have the room, he would keep a piece of lined paper handy or a post-it pad. The notebook was eventually exploding with sticky notes and loose sheets paperclipped and stapled in. He imagined Shaun must’ve kept a much neater hardcopy elsewhere. 

Eventually, Jessica caught him watching them. He was surprised it took so long – the kid wasn’t exactly subtle about it. That day she laughed a little too loudly, clutched his hand a little more tightly. She let their parting kiss linger a little longer between them as she looked into his eyes. Then, she left. When he turned around, Shaun was already gone too. This went on for two more weeks. 

“I had a date last night.” 

They had the weekend off and were discussing what they did with their precious free time. Apparently, he had a date. The reaction he received was a mixture of pleasantly surprised and barely contained curiosity. Her name was Lea, he elaborated. She was his neighbour and she always had apples and other assortments of fruit in her apartment. They went to a diner down the street – the usual steak and fries for her, and he ordered a breakfast platter with extra pancakes. He didn’t like the eggs, so she ate them. The date was a culmination of weeks of what he learned was flirting – that when she called him an asshat and gently shoved his arm with a giggle, it was a sign of affection. 

_That’s why he was taking notes._

Finally, she asked point-blank if he wanted to go to dinner with her. Yes, it was a proper date. Just as he learned social cues and interactions, so too did she learn his – being direct with the questions was the fastest way to get an honest answer out of him. Claire was ecstatic – ostensibly, she’d been rooting for the two to finally get together. Claire was his confident – it was her he turned to when began trying to decipher Lea’s seemingly mixed messages. She gave him his first notes. 

The nurses hung on to every detail as he replayed the night for them – no syrupy embellishments or corny monologues, though – just a list of what happened, point A to point B. But the nurses all doted on him – like he was the son or the brother they never had and so hearing that he went on his first date seemed to bring out something maternal in all of them. It irked Neil a little bit, the infantilizing; but he realized they meant well. Later, he realized his discomfort didn’t lie with the nurses. 

In the few moments of solitude he managed to wrangle while on the clock, Neil found himself replaying Shaun’s date in his head. He described Lea not in flowery, romantic terms, but as an objective person of interest. She was short, had short brown hair and brown eyes; she seemed overly fond a leather jacket that she wore everywhere, even if it didn’t match the rest of her clothes. She liked rock music. She always had apples for him. Sometimes, she would pick him up from the bus stop, so he wouldn’t have to walk the two blocks to their apartment. He liked Lea; she was kind and helpful. And pretty. 

She walked in just in time to catch the last comment. That wasn’t a problem – it was the fact that she managed to catch his reaction to the comment that dealt a heavy blow. She watched his chest rise and fall with a heavy breath, the way he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. The response was almost involuntary – almost. When their eyes met, she said nothing. Whatever thoughts or emotions ran through her head, she did not betray with matching expressions. She merely smiled, explained her presence, and took her rightful place beside him. And still, she said nothing. 

When he broke eye contact with Jessica, he caught Shaun staring again, twirling his thumbs as he watched their interaction. The lack of verbal exchange or romantic gestures was not lost on him, it seemed. After that, it was business as usual – life moved on.

\--

Except it didn’t. Not for Neil anyway. Despite the revelation that Shaun was indeed improving on his social skills and demonstrating his ability to adjust to independence by befriending Lea and going on diner dates, somehow, the blue-eyed beauty still haunted him. It progressed from active thought to subconscious pondering, where the baby-faced young surgeon managed to seep into his dreams with that radiant smile. 

No matter what was happening, all of his dreams involving Shaun were tinted with a sense of happiness. One night, he dreamt he was back at the hospital, where he was watching his protégé thrive and succeed in all his endeavours. He stood back and beamed with pride. 

Another night, his unconscious thoughts drifted more into the realm of fantasy – to a world where both of them were able to be close, and talk freely, and love openly. He imagined long walks in the autumn sunset; the weather was still warm and the air fresh, crisp. They didn’t say much, the loudest things being the leaves crunching beneath their steps. He like that – he like just being there. Small talk perplexed him – why have a conversation that’s meaningless? 

When they reached the end of the street in his imaginary neighbourhood, Shaun turned to face him, a small smile playing on his lips. He swayed back and forth, gently, on the balls of his feet, his eyes scanning everywhere but the face of the man in front of him – a 5’10” bundle of nervous energy. It’s okay, he reassured the young man; he already knew what he was going to say. 

And when he woke up the next morning, it was with a sunken heart that he realized, he was living a thousand worlds away from that neighbourhood. That every time he was confronted with Shaun Murphy, he had to remind himself that the man standing in front of him was very much different than the one in his dreams. That no matter how much he wanted to mess everything up, grab his face and close the distance between their lips and begin to meld the two people in his mind into one being he could hold, and touch, and love…he somehow convinced himself that it would never work between them. 

You’re being selfish, he scolded himself; you haven’t given any thought to Shaun’s well-being. The blue-eyed beauty needed so much more; he deserved to be with someone who could provide him with a full and happy life, more than what Neil could ever give him. His desire to keep him close would implode upon him, eventually.

The cardinal rule to dating a coworker is that you don’t. Sooner or later, things would get dirty and messy and tangled – and nobody would walk away without a little heartbreak. Neil already broke one heart.

And he just couldn’t do that to Shaun.


End file.
